For those of us who have no military background and little to no real understanding of military ammunition, I am assuming, in real life, if ONE of them 37 mm shells graced your aircraft you would be done!!??

Unlike the game of which it takes several shells to shoot down the enemy target...completely unrealistic...

IIRC, a U.S. pilot in the Pacific got in behind a Zero, and when he depressed the trigger, his guns fired and then immediately jammed. The Zero caught fire and went down. It was later determined that his aircraft expended a total of four rounds of .50 cal ammunition.

Generally speaking, one 37mm shell from a MiG-15 should be enough to take down an aircraft. Unless you graze the side of the fuselage or something in which case you might not blow the plane in half. There's a lot of HE filler in the MiG-15's 37mm shells, so it's not just the ballistic impact you'll have to worry about, it's the explosion as well.

For those of us who have no military background and little to no real understanding of military ammunition, I am assuming, in real life, if ONE of them 37 mm shells graced your aircraft you would be done!!??

Unlike the game of which it takes several shells to shoot down the enemy target...completely unrealistic...

If it hits something important, oh my yes.

Although it is possible for solid lead rounds to go right through a fuselage and cause no more damage than a hole.

Really depends where/what is hit.

Also rotary air-cooled engines seemed to be able to take more punishment than the in-line water-cooled engines.

IIRC, a U.S. pilot in the Pacific got in behind a Zero, and when he depressed the trigger, his guns fired and then immediately jammed. The Zero caught fire and went down. It was later determined that his aircraft expended a total of four rounds of .50 cal ammunition.

For those of us who have no military background and little to no real understanding of military ammunition, I am assuming, in real life, if ONE of them 37 mm shells graced your aircraft you would be done!!??

Unlike the game of which it takes several shells to shoot down the enemy target...completely unrealistic...

A teeny R4M blast would've sheared a wing off a long, long time ago...and of course, back then getting red damage to wings or tail means instant death.

The MK 108 could down a B-17 in a few hits IRL...it takes a lot of 3cm shells to down an IL-40P...in other words, forget about it, game's plagued with instant death problems so they had to tone it down, a lot...

Edited by pyantoryng, 17 May 2018 - 07:22 PM.

WoWP makes a great jousting game...especially with the 262 and people busy in furballs...
I am deaf, silent, and fly with unrealistic controls. Do not count on me to carry - my back's already broken from overweight.

I once worked on a B-52D that took a SAM shrapnel hit back in the midsection. The crew wasn't even aware of it until landing. That piece of shrapnel went through the skin, a quite thick structural member, a chaff (my concern) dispenser and fully loaded chaff magazine, and exited out the other side. If it had his in a lot of places it would have been catastrophic.

We were told it only takes 3 hits from a 20-23mm high explosive shell to take down a modern fighter. The holes they make would range from softball to basketball.

I remember we were told 37mm rounds were roughly equivalent to a WW2 hand grenade, weighing more than a pound with 2.5 ounces of explosive filler. Expect holes the size of an old 27inch TV . One hit could easily bring down a fighter.

Of course, just like the rifle caliber and heavy machineguns, shot placement is key. Plenty of fighters out there that survived hits from canons.

IIRC, a U.S. pilot in the Pacific got in behind a Zero, and when he depressed the trigger, his guns fired and then immediately jammed. The Zero caught fire and went down. It was later determined that his aircraft expended a total of four rounds of .50 cal ammunition.

You have to remember that zeroes had notoriously poor armor, a single well placed .50 cal round would be able to ignite the gas tank, which was very vulnerable. Compare that to most U.S. aircraft that served in the pacific, especially planes like the F4F and F6F, which had self-sealing fuel tanks. It helps a shell's killing power if the plane its fired at has practically no armor to speak of!

Whether or not the U.S. had the best planes in the war is certainly debatable, but we sure had quite a few types that could take an enormous amount of punishment.

I quote this from Wikipedia, regarding a particular P-47 Thunderbolt:

"In June 1943, [Egon] Mayer encountered Robert S. Johnson, a future ace from the 56th Fighter Group of the US Eighth Air Force. Johnson's P-47 Thunderbolt had been badly shot-up by some Focke Wulf Fw 190s during a routine mission. As Johnson limped home, with a canopy that would not open and hydraulic fluid and oil covering his windscreen, Mayer pulled alongside him in his Fw 190. Mayer looked the wounded P-47 over, and then circled to come in from Johnson's six-o'clock to give it the coup de grâce. The first gun pass failed to knock the heavy American fighter out of the sky. Mayer made two more runs on Johnson, without success. After running out of ammunition, Mayer pulled alongside Johnson, saluted him and headed for home. Johnson landed his plane, and counted more than 200 holes, without even moving around the airplane. He also saw that a 20 mm cannon shell had exploded just behind his headrest, which had made it impossible to open his canopy."

20mm shells, as HANNIBAL_LECTER's post visualized for us (+1 for that BTW), are no slouches, but this snippet right here goes to show that planes can be made to take an absolute hell of a pounding and still fly.

Now if Japan had made planes like this early on in the war things might have been different.

You have to remember that zeroes had notoriously poor armor, a single well placed .50 cal round would be able to ignite the gas tank, which was very vulnerable. Compare that to most U.S. aircraft that served in the pacific, especially planes like the F4F and F6F, which had self-sealing fuel tanks. It helps a shell's killing power if the plane its fired at has practically no armor to speak of!

Whether or not the U.S. had the best planes in the war is certainly debatable, but we sure had quite a few types that could take an enormous amount of punishment.

I quote this from Wikipedia, regarding a particular P-47 Thunderbolt:

"In June 1943, [Egon] Mayer encountered Robert S. Johnson, a future ace from the 56th Fighter Group of the US Eighth Air Force. Johnson's P-47 Thunderbolt had been badly shot-up by some Focke Wulf Fw 190s during a routine mission. As Johnson limped home, with a canopy that would not open and hydraulic fluid and oil covering his windscreen, Mayer pulled alongside him in his Fw 190. Mayer looked the wounded P-47 over, and then circled to come in from Johnson's six-o'clock to give it the coup de grâce. The first gun pass failed to knock the heavy American fighter out of the sky. Mayer made two more runs on Johnson, without success. After running out of ammunition, Mayer pulled alongside Johnson, saluted him and headed for home. Johnson landed his plane, and counted more than 200 holes, without even moving around the airplane. He also saw that a 20 mm cannon shell had exploded just behind his headrest, which had made it impossible to open his canopy."

20mm shells, as HANNIBAL_LECTER's post visualized for us (+1 for that BTW), are no slouches, but this snippet right here goes to show that planes can be made to take an absolute hell of a pounding and still fly.

Now if japan had made planes like this early on in the war things might have been different.

That shell caliber (the 105) is the same one that was used in the original M1 Abrams, there was an instance where that shell was fired directly at an Iraqi soldier during operation desert storm and he practically was reduced to thin air, though from what i heard this may have been slightly exaggerated.

the P.108A was to be used for anti-shipping, but if you wanted a guaranteed, absolutely surefire way to knock a large bomber out of the sky while in a plane yourself, the 102mm would be the largest possible shell at the time to have done it with.